Monday, 12 August 2013

The former Scottish Liberal Democrat leader has been long-term support of wind
power, telling a party conference in 2008 that British Gas profits were an
“abomination” and “the companies that should be making big profits are
Scotland’s renewable energy companies.”

He told Sir Ian that MPs would welcome “your further consideration of ways in
which the [expenses] scheme might be made easier both to administer and to
comply with”. “You have recently indicated your willingness to consider the
case for dealing with overnight costs and subsistence through an allowances
system,” he said.

3
comments:

"dealing with overnight costs and subsistence through an allowances system"

There's nothing wrong with that, so long as i) someone is prepared to police the system to ensure pols don't claim for expenses they are not entitled to and ii) the allowances aren't absurdly generous.

B - "There's nothing wrong with that, so long as i) someone is prepared to police the system to ensure pols don't claim for expenses they are not entitled to and ii) the allowances aren't absurdly generous".

Well, the keyword is "simplification" and in such a context I think it is fair to assume that "allowance" will mean "modelled on the House of Lords daily attendance allowance - i.e you turn up, you get it" thus removing any nit picking need to assess or check whether or not it is being paid to reimburse expenses incurred of necessity because of being an MP, and on the matter of "the allowances aren't absurdly generous", well, when they 'remodelled' the Lords expenses [in order to ahem, save money] they introduced a single day rate to cover all expenses, including accommodation, secretarial support, research assistance, and daily subsistence, available at a full rate of £300 or a "half day" rate of £150, for those who are not able to devote the full day to parliamentary work but continued to allow claims for expenses for travelling to London. To the surprise of no one with half a brain cell, but of course the total surprise of the House authorities, this "money saving idea" actually ended up costing more, seeing allowances expenditure rising to £6 million in the first quarter it applied, compared to expenditure of £4.25 million in the equivalent quarter the previous year, and simply because a significant number of Peers who had never previously claimed certain expenses [in many cases because they wouldn't qualify for them] were all now receiving them under the "all embracing daily attendance allowance" into which they had been subsumed ..

Well, yes, there is no system so good that the pols cant fsck it up, but we are talking about overnight subsistence here, so you presumably would have to prove that you did actually spend the night within a reasonable distance of the HoC, like leaving after a certain time one day and coming back before a certain time the next. If you want to spend the intervening time in a nightclub or kipping on a friend's sofa, then that's up to you and if you want to spend it in Claridges, then you don't get any more.